


But the gates won't open

by consultingstoryteller



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Death, Djinn bonded lovers, F/M, Gen, Geralt really really cares, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Plague, Unresolved Emotional Tension, and freely chosen soulmates, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:13:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23634406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingstoryteller/pseuds/consultingstoryteller
Summary: It was the second week of June when a ship docked in Gors Velen harbour.25 days later the city gates were locked. The plague had arrived.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	But the gates won't open

It was the second week of June when a ship arrived in Gors Velen. 

The late afternoon sun was beginning to set over the western slopes behind the city gates, painting the dusty brick coloured houses in a golden hue in the eyes of the passengers eagerly standing in wait on the deck.

The ship had set sail from Dillingen 6 days ago, and Hrafn Aldane was glad to see the masts ahead signalling their arrival to the harbour. The journey had been most uncomfortable, even with the captain making haste to scale the river and round up the peninsula trying to follow the favourable winds as much as he could. He had not quite managed to chase them and they were now gliding towards the docks some day late from the promised date. Everyone was eager to get off and set home or alternatively find a watering whole of their own, preferably in the shade. The summer had been sweltering hot so far and Hrafn felt all kinds of itchy and sweaty regardless of the mild summer wind pushing them forward. He scratched his neck with an abandon and groaned.

Their ship wasn’t one of those impossibly large and important vessels, and most importantly it took fuck all time to dock and empty. Thanking all graces he happened to remember Hrafn gathered his numerous bags and rolls from the wooden deck and headed towards the main street. He needed a pint of sweetest mead this town had to offer immediately or sooner. 

He tried not to trample over the squeaky rodents rushing down the plank and flooding into the dim alleyways between the slightly left-leaning fishermen shacks. He was not in the mood to pick rat entrails from his boot soles. 

He wasn’t fooled by the crowds of the several shadier establishments in the docks and marched down towards the merchants quarter. The Bristly Boar had served him quite nicely in the past and he was not going to be disappointed this time round either. No longer than twenty minutes later he had swung his numerous baggage in the corner of the pub, shrugged his overcoat over them and ordered a maybe-not-cold but definitely sweet enough pint. 

He sat there, scratching his arm, listening to the singing bard with a voice of a… well, Hrafn was a cartographer and had no head for poetic expressions, so he couldn’t really think what she sounded like at all, but he was thoroughly enjoying it nevertheless. 

In his enjoyment he forgot to be quite as mindful of his bags and sacs as he probably should’ve and didn’t notice the figure rummaging through them until he was elbows deep in the second bag. 

“OI!”, Hrafn shouted and shot up, scaring the thief off through the back door, in his grasp something that looked like his quill box that also held his priced multicoloured ink bottles. 

“Stop the thief, he’s making away with my livelihood!”. But the man was already gone and his fellow pub dwellers couldn’t be roused for anything more than a sympathetic shrug. Checking through his bags he could at least confirm that his compasses were still intact. Those would’ve been excruciatingly expensive to replace. 

Hrafn swore and threw the bags back into the corner. He was pissed off now, and the only remedy was to get gloriously plastered. 

He was feeling certainly happier a few hours after the sunset when he stumbled up to his room in the inn above the pub, swaying and singing the pretty bard’s greatest hits. She really had the most beautiful… fingers? He had lost his thought somewhere between the two floors. None of this mattered once he hit the surprisingly soft straw mattress belly on and began snoring his night away. 

And if he was too tired to even pull off his boots before flopping down, who was there to judge him?

\-----

Six days later Hrafn was dead. 

He had woken up on the morning after, holding his terribly aching head, chucked his travel clothes in the nearby launder and her assistant, replaced his stolen equipment and moved into his lodgings provided for him during the job. 

The next day he became feverish, two days later delirious. When his new landlord, worried about his fairly profitable tenant, tried to offer him a bone broth he noted that his skin looked taunt and tight, like it had shrunk over his flesh. In reality he was already swelling, but no one dared to go too close to inspect him. The next day he was holding his stomach, writhing and groaning in pain.

A healer woman was brought in, and the coin borrowed from his purse to pay for her. But she was no physician and other than smoking up a plethora of calming herbs and dosing him in potions there was not much she could do for him. 

The lump a size of a pheasant egg in his groin went entirely unnoticed. As did the blackening in his toes. She wasn’t a very observant healer and trusted the herbs to do their job. 

On the sixth day after cartographer Hrafn Aldane arrived in Gors Velen his body was thrown into the poor folks’ pit at the edge of the town. A junior temple attendant performed an adequate but maybe somewhat stumbling rite of passing, his landlord sold his tools and overcoat and donated his maps and graphs to the mayor, and that was that. 

Two days later a known thief and pickpocket was found lifeless in an alleyway just outside the merchants quarter. His right hand was crusted black and curled in. People agreed it was a curse cast on him for his sins and threw him into the pit on top of the poor cartographer. Had Hrafn been alive at this point he might’ve seen the irony in the situation. 

A week after Hrafn’s passing a wailing could be heard from the Bristly Boar. The innkeeper’s young boy had died overnight, feverish and gasping, his swollen neck covered in purple bruises and lumps. His poor mother cried and cried for days as one by one her three youngest children met the same fate. The community was kind hearted and collected contributions for their well loved public servant. Three small coffins were ordered and a small plot was purchased right by the temple. It was a beautiful burial. 

The laundrette closed suddenly and no one quite knew what had happened to the woman and her assistant. 

A murmur started spreading amongst the dock shack dwellers. People were complaining bites and scratches, which was nothing unusual. A week later they started dropping dead which was more unusual. Panic was starting to spread, a coroner was called but they refused to enter the harbour slums. Their life was not overly precious for the nobles and the clergy of the city. The whole thing was hushed over in a gentle manner and left to the few barber-surgeons and midwives already residing in the area. 

The young woman tending the chambers in The Bristly Boar died after a week’s excruciating illness. This time a coroner did visit the inn with a court healer on his heels. It was the merchants quarter after all, things like this should be properly investigated. The innkeeper poured them tankards of mild ale and apologised for his wife’s absence. She was not well. 

The grave digger in the pit site by the city walls suddenly found himself rather busier than normally this time a year. The junior temple attendant had become quite decent performing the burial rites in the last couple of weeks. He wasn’t sure if he should be glad about the learning opportunity or not. 

In the first week of July, 23 days after the arrival of the ship, Julian Alfred Pankratz Viscount de Lettenhove rode into Gors Velen. 

\----

Two days later the gates were locked.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this urge to write a emotionally charged plague fic as a bit of escapism since actually escaping a very real current pandemic situation in London. A virus refugee was not something I ever though I'd become, but now being safe and sound and more than a little bit bored cooped up in my parents' place I thought putting my emotions in a story form and meanwhile torturing some of my favourite characters might be a good way to pass the time. 
> 
> Happy ending in one form or another. I might be a monster but I think we need it now. 
> 
> Also it's probably quite unnecessary to mention but I'm not an expert in plague and am playing pretty wild fast and loose with symptoms, incubation times and how a medieval plague outbreaks were dealt with. Don't let it come between you and this fic unless you really are a plague expert. In which case help?


End file.
